Month: December 2006

(Christmas present and Christmas past)

I’ll be sharing a two-bedroom Craftsman-style house in Oakland, half a block from Piedmont Avenue and otherwise ideally situated in a great neighborhood convenient to just about every form of transportation a person could want. I’m excited to earn the right to some Oakland civic pride.

And, for the record, posting to Craigslist’s housing wanted section is the only way to go when searching for a room. Now to find the equivalent for jobs…

My baptism by beer into my new San Francisco life came yesterday in the form of Santacon 2006: San Francisco Santarchy.

Leslie and I spent Friday night preparing our Santa garb.

We went at 9AM on Saturday to meet up with the other East Bay Santas and take the ferry into the city. On the way, we were stopped by a Japanese couple who wanted a picture with the crazy locals. I was excited to officially be a crazy local.

On the ferry, Leslie broke in her beard.

And an elf sang in honor of the rainbow that appeared over Alcatraz as we neared the city.

When we got to Pier 39, we met up with a whole mob of Santas, many of whom took advantage of the “Santas ride for half-price” deal at the carousel.

Next stop: Bubba Gump’s for a round of Bloody Marys, then on to Hooter’s, where things started to get… weird. er.

From there, Santas wheezed up a very long hill…

Squealed gleefully down a curvy road…

And played a disorderly game of Twister in the park.

More beer, and then some more beer after that, and then Santacon commandeered the Hustler Club, which is where Leslie and I finally parted ways with our newfound Santa family. Oh, and Leslie twisted her ankle because she ignored the one piece of advice given to us by a veteran Santarchist: Don’t drink so much that you fall down.

Too bad Christmas only comes once a year.

Berkeley is some kind of alternate universe, overrun with Foresters and Minis and suffering from a very serious Prius infestation. The grocery stores have Harper’s and Bust in the checkout lane racks, and the neighborhood drug store has an entire aisle of $30+ yoga mats. Bryan pointed out a raw/organic/live food restaurant which serves “I AM OPEN-HEARTED spicy mole pizza.”

One of the biggest adjustments for me while both driving and walking around town is that pedestrians have right of way. Which, while not a unique concept, is actually enforced by popular consensus here. Well, popular consensus and the threat of hefty fines. At any crosswalk without a light, a pedestrian can just waltz across the road and traffic in both directions has to—and does—stop. This is convenient when on foot, but it makes driving extremely stressful. I’m constantly worried that some empowered pedestrian is going to jump from a curb and exercise her right to make me be courteous. I’m actually less afraid of hitting someone than I am of drawing the sanctimonious ire of other Berkeleyites. Berkeleyians. People who buy yoga mats at the drug store and smoke their drugs on the street.

It’s fantastic. Housing update coming soon!